Category: Web Design

The Washington Post has recently published an article highlighting brutalist web design trends.

Web brutalism is a term coined by Pascal Deville, Creative Director at the Freundliche Grüsse ad agency in Zurich, Switzerland, and the owner of brutalistwebsites.com. Sites which are classified as brutalist have a “ruggedness and lack of concern to look comfortable or easy”.

The site showcases both recent and historical sites which ignore comfortable, familiar templates; approachable interfaces and comfortable colour schemes.

The website has received a lot of attention of late, with a huge increase in visitor numbers and around 100 submissions of sites a day.

The brutalist label can be widely applied, and sometimes include more than just the aesthetics. Deville also looks at the code: “… In the code you can see if it’s really a streamlined application or it’s a very rough, handmade, HTML website,” he explained.

Deville’s curation of such sites have sparked interest with designers, coders and developers. A number of people are drawn towards the aesthetic, with some people trying to imitate and develop it.

While we don’t see this aesthetic movement taking over traditional and justifiably well-established design rules, it’s an interesting rabbit hole to go down for a while before resurfacing to a world where the interfaces, layouts and colour schemes make a bit more sense.

Google has recently released the results of years of research; that working nicer is a better way of getting along.

It may seem obvious, but the team charged with studying the secrets of successful teamwork admitted they were “dead wrong” about their assumptions.

Known as Project Aristotle, Google’s research team interviewed hundreds of employees and analysed data from 100+ teams in the company. Researchers were initially looking for a perfect combination of people to make the perfect team. However, Project Aristotle discovered they were on the wrong track. Good teamwork isn’t about putting the right people together, it’s about fostering an environment where people feel safe to interact with others.

Respect, mutual contribution, allowing people to voice their ideas and opinions, and encouraging genuine interaction were the main ingredients of a happy and productive team

These factors have been summed up as “psychological safety”. Encouraging such an environment allows people to open up and interact with each other in a more respectful way. It also allows team members to speak up, share ideas, and ask questions without concern of the embarrassment which can occur in a less welcoming environment.

We’ve found an excellent source detailing the types of animation in web design.

One of the main web design trends in 2016 is animation. No longer a optional extra, animation is often expected by the user. As well as looking nice, animation provides excellent visual feedback to user’s interactions. They can also save crucial screen space by bridging the gap between main screens and navigation menus. Done well, these interactions can be seamless and non-invasive.

Animation is also excellent for drawing attention. Hover animations (still the sole domain of laptops and desktop computers), show interactive elements of a website. A well-placed animation or two can also guide the user through a website and help steer them in the right (or desired) direction.

In this image-driven age of the internet, galleries and slideshow animation are especially important. Loading animations help distract the user from the inconvenience of waiting. Scrolling nimation may not be glamorous, but without it, we’d still be living with literal web pages. Animation with no purpose other than looking pretty also have their place in brand identity and web presence.

For a full breakdown of these types of animation accompanied with examples, check out the link below.

While it may be tempting to adopt the latest style, there are things to consider before embracing a trend. Jumping on every device, meme or design layout can be exhausting and pointless if badly considered. Taking a step back from the bandwagons and asking a few simple questions can save you from making a change for change’s sake.

A good web design roadmap is an essential part of the development process. It can ease workflow, help you and your client achieve your respective visions, and help you avoid being a web designer from hell (which can lead the more commonly know client from hell phenomenon). (more…)

The design sprint process is a 5-day development process based on agile thinking. Used by many tech companies both big and small, it’s a popular process which gets quick results without employees burning out or sliding into destructive “crunch” periods.

Business website Fast Company has a fascinating interview with Jake Knapp, one of the pioneers of the design sprint process.

Exciting news for inclusivity as there will now be accessible images on Twitter.

The social media giant has implemented the ability to insert alt text into images. Long a tool for silly internet jokes, alt text is actually an excellent way to provide a more engaging internet experience to the visually impaired. Alt text allows users to insert descriptions of the image which can be scanned by accessibility software to read the descriptions to visually impaired users. Descriptions can be up to 420 characters, and the feature is available on iOS and Android smartphones.

Announcing the feature, Twitter posted in its blog: “We’re excited to empower our customers and publishers to make images on Twitter accessible to the widest possible audience, so everyone can be included in the conversation and experience the biggest moments together.”

As we covered in our Blind Online:Considering Visually Impaired Users article, alt text is an excellent way of giving visually impaired users an extra level of online experience that others may take for granted. This update from a company as big and influential as Twitter shows that accessibility is a big topic. Accessible web design will only expand and become easier to implement as more companies adopt similar features.

We have some web design psychology tips to help enhance your design knowledge. You may produce beautiful and brilliant websites, but sometimes even the best design can simply not appeal to users due to overlooking subconscious factors. For example, having a good grasp of layout and colour means users will have an easier time navigating your site. Knowing some of these visible and invisible elements can really enhance your design and help to make it all the more engaging.

Although not technically web design, this recent news of development of a videogame for people with learning disabilities bears mention as part of our continuing exploration of inclusive design.

Working in conjunction with people who have learning disabilities in Edinburgh and Midlothian, the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and the UWS’ Scottish Centre for Enabling Technologies (SCET) have produced a prototype of #keepmesafe, a videogame which aims to live up to its title.